Walking back into my building this morning I was taken by the flowering bushes along the walk and how the color of their leaves went so well with the color of their blossoms. Actually, I’d noticed it before in wild rose blossoms and day lilies along the highway, but today the match was on my mind. Lovely Sunday morning that it is, it’s comforting to think that mother nature in her infinite wisdom chose matching colors with a clear purpose: The warm green tending towards yellow pairing beautifully with bright, burnt orange blossoms while the cool, soft green leaves pair beautifully with pink to magenta blossoms. The truth is, sadly, that we just grew up seeing natural pairings and have developed our sense of beauty based on what we see. Color wheels, those wonderful tools used to help designers make choices, don’t exist naturally. Color wheels are an invention to help us codify the way we see, not a scheme that nature follows.

One of the great art books that I inherited from my dad is a large hardcover filled with beautiful illustrations: Goethe’s Color Theory. In it, Goethe presents a vast collection of color wheels he developed, all attempting to codify our choices in a scientific fashion. One of the most surprising to me as a child was one with magenta as a primary and red as a secondary. Red can be made from magenta with yellow. That blew away all of the Roy G Biv nonsense I’d learned, but it matches our printing primaries perfectly: Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow of CMYK fame. I was already a bit annoyed with that “indigo” addition. Indigo? Really?

So back to our flowers. We grew up seeing flowers on plants. Our sense of beauty comes very much from seeing those flowers as well as a dark, unsaturated lawn against a dark gray sky or a bright, saturated green lawn against a bright blue sky. We’ve been trained to respond to color choices based on how we may have felt about the combinations in nature. Beauty, and what we think are appropriate color pairings, are human constructs to help us determine value.

Which brings me to why I chose to mention this now. I read that Bon Appétit shot it’s May cover with an iPhone. I haven’t seen the cover yet, only an online version. The versions I’ve seen look a bit soft focused. I wonder if the Art Director for Bon Appétit’s May ’75 cover would accept the iPhone shot? Though I readily accept the advances in phone technology I wonder if our sense of what’s useful, valuable, beautiful, isn’t changing based on society’s changing view? To be clear, that isn’t a value judgment. What I value, what I think is beautiful, mostly belongs to another time.

Tomorrow this child will be 2½. That seems to be an important developmental milestone. Although I could sit and have an intelligent conversation with her anytime over the past year, I haven’t pushed learning the alphabet. We talk about the world around us but not the days of the week. She loves to paint and knows the colors, loves cats and dogs and recognizes several breeds, but we haven’t gotten to addition or subtraction yet. Am I remiss in my child care? When her mom was growing up, I was annoyed when she had school work to do. Home time was our time, and we had things to do. Things that I thought were important or meaningful. Academics can happen later, or as those skills may be useful in our adventures. Observation. Awareness. Compassion. Fun and funny. All are what we do.

The other morning we went to a little market up the street. My granddaughter knows the folks in the market and asks about them every time we shop. She likes to help carry things back, too. Last visit we picked up several things and had two bags to carry home. One was light but bulky, six loose rolls of toilet paper. Outside I handed the two handles of that bag to my helper and she grabbed them and tried to take a step. The bag dragged on the ground and she could barely walk.

“Wait…” she said. “Wait, let me put my arm through it.” She slid her arm through the handles so the bag was at her shoulder and no longer dragged. Then she just walked back to the apartment with me. I feel pretty certain that if she needed to count those six rolls, she’d figure it out.

There are two water fountains at this spot: one for adults and this shorter one for children. Or short adults. Whatever. Both are too high; so, this is an entertaining solution. Moments later, she was on all fours in a puddle, lapping water like a dog. Fortunately, I stopped her instead of taking the shot – A sure sign I was destined to be a grandfather and not an artist.

My granddaughter hung out with me for an hour on Saturday while her mom did some last minute birthday-gift wrapping. When mom came to pick her up, she sat on the floor to finish watching Daniel Tiger and get her hair brushed. I have about five minutes of hairbrushing video, but I have to publish this tiny snip. We’ve met many kids at the park and haven’t run in to another practically-two-year-old who would understand the phrase “shake some water on the brush” let alone actually do it. The whine beforehand is perfect. She needs to learn to say, “oh mo-ther!” Maybe I should work on that…

This is the second year my daughter and granddaughter have walked in the March of Dimes’ March for Babies. It’s a good cause, at a time of the year when there are many good causes. And it looks like it will be cold and raining. Ah well. I know they’ll still be there. We’re all committed to the folks who made it possible for this little one to make it through her first few weeks in Geisinger’s NICU. There were many others there at the time, and some didn’t make it. Many. That’s my granddaughter’s word for more things than she can count. Many balloons. Many cookies. Many babies. Many causes. We’re so fortunate that she was able to master an understanding of the concept many. I hope she has many friends tomorrow.

I read a post in one of the caregiver blogs that talked about a two-year-old’s vocabulary. I tried to document this kid’s at 22 months, but just can’t keep up. The other night she slept over. For a late afternoon snack she had cheerios and milk. It takes a fairly long time, as each banana slice gets a thumb through it and occasionally the cereal is eaten with the fingers- piece by piece. When she finally neared the end she sat up and said,

“More? More?” Well of course there’s more. I sprinkled new honey-nut cheerios on top of the milk still in her bowl and she took a spoonful. She chewed for a moment, then raising her eyebrows she looked at me.